In times like these, both digital resilience and technological transfer are key aspects of social importance for counties all around the world. The European Union has been working for years now on a series of coordinated measures to achieve their strategic objectives on the matter by 2025. That’s why, every year, they release their Digital Economy and Societies Index (DESI), among a number of other diagnostic tools.

The index report assesses levels of digital skills, connectivity, the use of Internet by citizens, as well as technological integration in both the public and private sectors. Spain has made progress in all key aspects and has positioned itself as a leader in fibre optic deployment at European level.

In fact, its fibre optic network is the best on the entire continent. In Spain, thanks to the work of neutral operators like lyntia, there’s now more fibre optic than in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy put together. This solid connectivity infrastructure has allowed the country – at least from a technological point of view – to cope better with the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and to look with a degree of optimism to the challenges coming its way, which are also warned about in the DESI report.

Low penetration of technology and connectivity within SMEs

One of the most worrying realities we can take from the DESI analysis is that the vast majority of SMEs in the European Union don’t use technology, nor do they make the most of digital transfer. The European Commission, responsible for preparing the DESI report, warns that just 17% use cloud services, a meagre 12% use big data analyses, and only 17.5% sold any products or services online throughout the whole of 2019.

Of course, we’ll have to look carefully at the new reality once 2020 data is available, which is likely to show an increase on these figures due to the effects of successive quarantines. But it seems clear that Europe will still have a way to go in this area. Spain, due to its privileged position in terms of connectivity, may have taken the road less travelled, but it still has work to do to align its digitalisation strategies with the COVID‑19 recovery plan for Europe.

Improving digital performance in Spain, just outside the top 10

Despite there still being a long way to go, Spain has made significant progress, according to data collected as part of DESI, when compared to previous years. In relation to other European partners, the country has maintained its position in one of five key indicators – connectivity – and made progress in the other four, which puts Spain in contention with the countries with the greatest digital performance in the whole of Europe, namely Finland, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. Currently, Spain takes eleventh place.

It seems clear that Spain needs to continue on a path of taking advantage of its excellent national fibre optic network. In total, the country has more than 10,000 facilities connected by fibre. That’s around 2% more than their European neighbours – according to consultancy firm Analysys Mason –, which gives Spain a competitive advantage and the option to increase digital integration even further, particularly in the private sector, as recommended by the European Commission to the twenty-seven member states.

From our position as a neutral operator, we firmly believe lyntia can contribute to achieving this goal. Not just to overcome the economic crisis resulting from the impact of Coronavirus across Europe, but also to establish Spain as a continental leader in terms of connectivity.